To John Brown's fell the honour of building what was to become Union Castle's last South African mailship due I believe to a falling out in relations between Union Castle/ British and Commonwealth and Harland and Wolff at Belfast.
Launched on January 17th 1961 she was delivered just before the end of that year and unlike previous ships was a one class vessel marketed as Hotel Class.
In 1966 in a joint operation with the South African Marine Corporation she transferred to them being renamed SA VAAL along with PRETORIA CASTLE which became SA ORANJE. She ran on this service til 1977 when on termination of the Cape Mailship Service she was sold to the infant Carnival Cruise Line becoming their FESTIVALE, another ex-British liner which helped to launch this company into the major force it is today.
Carnival ran her for an amazing 19 years and in 1996 she was sold on again becoming ISLAND BREEZE. Her fortunes were fading and in 2000 she gained the not very maritime THE BIG RED BOAT III. A lot of her time was spent laid up and in 2003 as THE BIG BOAT she arrived on the Alang Beach on July 9th and was beached for scrapping on the 13th.

Attachments

Building. HMS Hampshire in foreground, British Queen in the basin.

From the bow.

Lavender hull in all its splendour as Launch Day approaches.

Last edited by Deepol on Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

A very fine ship. I sailed in her for the last 1 1/2 voyages as Transvaal Castle, and the first 1 1/2 voyages as S.A. Vaal.
Sadly, they had almost completely dispensed with wooden decks at that time. The only patch of planking was at the after end of the officers accommodation. The rest was steel painted grey!
Two more mailiships were built after Transvaal Castle. They were Good Hope Castle and Southampton Castle, but were initially without passenger accommodation although they were in the mail schedule with the big ones.
They fitted them with accommodation for 12 passengers later in order to serve Ascension and St. Helena. They were built by Swan Hunter. To end up with a name like Big Red Boat III was dreadful!
Bob

Although the Transvaal Castle was billed as the last true Mailship, B&C had plans to order a further two ships and detailed designs etc were undertaken.
But due to uncertainties, continual harassment from Safmarine, the container ship revolution and the contract up for renewal in 1966, they decided to postpone the order.
Eventually to maintain the new schedule the two mini mails were ordered.
Vic

They were still talking about building another in the early 70s, but I think it was probably the fuel crisis in about 1974 that did for them. Windsor Castle guzzled over 250 tons per day at 22.5 knots.
Bob

two things - the model of her as the transvaal castle - where is it situated ? ironically there were 2 big red boats scrapped - the one was the edinburgh castle x Eugenio c - not union castle - and went as big red boat 11 - whereas the x transvaal castle went as the big red boat 111

The model is at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre at Nitshill in Glasgow where the models are stored when not on display. There are regular tours where they can be viewed.The next one is on 27th November. These can be booked on line at the GMRC site

hello paul - thank you for the link - i was hoping to get a better picture of her - regrettably i am at the bottom of africa - so my chances of getting there are very small - thank you for the response though kindest regards bryan

Who is online

About Us

ClydeMaritime is a resource for all shipping news on the Clyde and beyond.

In addition to this forum, our main website contains listings for Arrivals and Departures on the Clyde, historical information and articles related to the Clyde and details of Cruise Ship visits and much more.